Medical care vs. health care

Let’s talk for a minute about medical care vs healthcare. My friends at the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, an organization to which every physician should belong, have made the distinction between these two phrases very clear. Physicians, after all, deliver medical care to their patients. They do not deliver “health” to patients. A patient’s health condition is partly their responsibility. It is an individual responsibility for all of us to take the best care of ourselves that we can.